I. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the treatment of dehydration in large adult domestic animals, particularly mature bovine mammals, caused by environmental stresses to thereby maintain normal nutrient and body fluid balances. More specifically, the present invention relates to a pelletized feed supplement composition and method of making designed for use in feed intended for beef and dairy cattle, for example, to help prevent dehydration during extreme environmental conditions such as extreme heat and high humidity that causes dairy cows and beef cattle to minimize their production of milk or maintain normal body weight; or, prior to shipment, to help prevent dehydration and loss of body fluids when animals do not receive or have feed and water available for their normal consumption during transport.
II. Related Art
Re-hydration products such as that disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,839,347 to Peter H. Franz, an inventor in the present application, have been very effective in reducing losses from dehydration in animals when administered via the drinking water. Animals normally consume drinking water at a rate of about 8-12% of their body weight per day, depending on climatic conditions; and when measured over extended period of time, most animals consume an average volume of about 10% of their body weight in fluids.
Present accepted drinking water facilities on most livestock farms, for example, operate on a continuous flow basis in which they may store a small amount (3-4) gallons of water. Once these amounts of drinking water are consumed, the free flow or continuous systems automatically refill dispensing containers on a continuous basis to make drinking water available to animals on demand. Animals such as young piglets weighing 10-20 pounds consume 1-2 pounds, or pints, of water on a daily basis over perhaps 6-10 intakes throughout a day or 24-hour period. The continuous flow drinking water delivery systems have developed proportioners that can administer water soluble re-hydration products such as disclosed in the above patent for poultry, swine and calves until they reach a certain size. However, once cattle reach a weight of over 600 pounds, oral re-hydration products such as the formula of the above-mentioned patent are much less effective in preventing dehydration because of difficulties in proportioning for the large total amounts of water consumed on a daily basis by each animal.
Thus, a dairy or beef animal weighing 1,000 pounds will normally consume about 100 pounds or 12.5 gallons of water per day. These animals consume up to 5 gallons at a single time and most continuous drinking water systems cause the flow to move so quickly that they have difficulty in maintaining the correct concentration of re-hydration products in the water within a normal system pipeline, thereby reducing the potential benefits of such re-hydration products for large animals. In addition, dairy cows and lactating beef cows producing milk need additional supplies of drinking water for milk production. A 1,200 pound cow producing 80 pounds of milk, for example, would need 80 pounds of water for milk production plus 120 pounds of water for normal maintenance or a total of 200 pounds (25 gallons) of water on a daily basis. Many cows produce in excess of even 100 pounds of milk per day so that it can be seen that the required fluid consumption is quite high in these animals. For the above and other reasons, there exists a definite need to supply re-hydration products to such animals on a basis other than via the drinking water.
Those raising beef and dairy animals have long realized that milk production drops in hot weather and during transport and are in need of an alternative way of re-hydrating those animals to prevent body shrink and dehydration. The re-hydration material of the present invention has been specifically designed to answer this need by providing such a re-hydration material in a pellet form which, when mixed with the feed or fed as a top dress, provides similar re-hydration benefits as seen by the drinking water supplement for small (10-400 pound) animals.
Additionally, in the related art, U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,505,968 and 5,728,675 disclose supplements for treating stress associated with transport, holding, management and handling of animals. These supplements may be administered to an animal in solid form. U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2002/0176881 discloses a supplement for treating dehydration which, although preferably in the form of a fluid, may be in the form of a premix, a powder, a glomerate, a syrup, a gel, a tablet or a capsule. That supplement includes an amount of betaine, one or more digestable carbohydrates and one or more minerals.